Thursday, 5 August 2010

Every sperm is sacred.Every sperm is great.If a sperm is wasted,God gets quite irate.

Let the heathen spill theirsOn the dusty ground.God shall make them pay forEach sperm that can't be found.- Monty Python, "The Meaning Of Life"

Sperm Damage from Laptop Computer's Radiation

A new scientific study finally settled the controversy as to whether laptop computers are capable of causing damage to a person's reproductive organs. The answer is Yes.

The study followed the simplest procedures - which is always the best way to do basic science - and it came out with unquestionable results that none of us wants to hear: Yes, wireless laptop radiations reduces male fertility by reducing sperm motility and by fragmenting DNA within sperm cells.

The tests carried out by the study are solid and the implications incontrovertible. The Argentinian scientists who authored the study found it valid enough - and scary enough - to present to next scientific Congress of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) that's scheduled to take place in October 2010 in Denver, USA.

The effects of radiation are additive, and the risks of damage from radiation become compounded as the sources of radiation in our lives multiply. This means that because we live in the real world, not in a laboratory, the known risks from one source should be added to the known risks from all the other sources in order to assess the REAL danger that something is capable of causing us. Radiation from radioactive weapons in our environment is already a verified source of danger (Bosnia {the river Danube}, Iraq {the rivers Tigris and Euphrates}, Afghanistan and Palestine have been recent targets of bombings with radioactive uranium); cellphones and cellphone towers are everywhere now in our social environment; nuclear power plants; medical and dental x-rays and CT-scans; radiation from our TV sets and desktop computer screens; all of these sources pose dangers to our health that are not calculable by a simple addition of risk percentages. The total (actual) percentages of damage to our health are many times the multiple of each factor, because all of these factors enhance each other.

Our social and natural environment has become a soup of artificial electromagnetic radiation that is constantly vibrating around us and beaming through our bodies, causing measurable damages. The forces of Capital and the State are perfectly content with this state of affairs, since it increases profits and power for them, and more death and illness for us.

Buenos Aires - Argentine researchers have found that radiation emitted by an Internet-connected computer resting on the user’s legs may affect male fertility by reducing sperm motility and fragmenting DNA.

The research, first in the world on the subject, was carried out by experts from Nascentis, a reproductive medicine center located in Córdoba, Argentina. The results of the study will be presented at the 66 Congress of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) taking place in October in Denver, USA.

The researchers (led by Conrado Avendaño, a biochemist specializing in andrology, in collaboration with Ariela Mata, reproductive biology specialist and César Sánchez Sarmiento, director of the medical center, among others) demonstrated that the motility of spermatozoa is impaired when these cells are exposed to the radiation from laptops, according to a report published in the Córdoba newspaper “La Voz” (in Spanish).

For this study, the researchers evaluated semen samples from healthy donors with no history of recent illnesses. Each sample was divided into two equal fractions, which were placed in separate temperature-controlled rooms. One of the sub-samples was incubated under a laptop connected to the Internet, to replicate the conditions that occur when a man places the computer on his lap.

"After four hours of incubation of sperm under the two different conditions, we found that in the sample exposed to the laptop, a large percentage of the sperm cells were affected, "said Dr. Avendaño to "La Voz”. The investigator concludes that their study shows that exposure of sperm to the radiation from the device did not kill the sperm cells, but affected their motility. Further, by evaluating the sperm cells’ DNA integrity, they found that there was a significant difference between both sub-samples:"The fraction exposed to radiation had a significant increase in sperm cells with fragmented (broken) DNA," said Avendaño.

The findings are important because previous studies on reproductive medicine have shown that some of the problems in fertilization and embryonic development are caused by damage in the DNA molecules of the sperm.

While agreeing that further research on the matter is required, the researchers advise men to avoid holding laptop computers on the legs, "especially if they are connected to Internet through Wi-Fi."

This research brings new knowledge on the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) on human health. EMF levels from Wi-Fi devices are much lower than those emitted by mobile phones, and there is less public concern on potential health issues for wireless LAN devices. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) claims that if a person spends one year in a Wi-Fi hot-spot, they will receive a dose of radio waves equivalent to a 20-minute call on a mobile phone.

Often wireless access points are in close proximity to humans, but the drop off in the already low power over distance is fast, following the inverse-square law (The radiation passing through any unit area is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source.)

Nonetheless, the results of this study suggest that when a laptop is operated for long periods, the close proximity to the source of the EMF may affect a male user sensitive reproductive cells causing damage to DNA and reducing sperm cell motility.